


Handcrafted

by gigantic



Category: Hip Hop RPF, Indie Music RPF, Music RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-16
Updated: 2010-09-16
Packaged: 2017-11-13 07:24:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/500950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigantic/pseuds/gigantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rostam starts drawing for Cudi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Handcrafted

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this because Kid Cudi, Rostam Batmanglij, and Bethany Cosentino were [in the studio together](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PDJRThv_Ww), recording [that Converse campaign track, 'All Summer](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COrv0PIg-Z4),' and I was like, "Oh, shit! Rostam/Kid Cudi. I'd read it?" Apparently, I'd also write it.

"Do you really draw every day?" Scott asks while they're in the studio, sliding his foot out to bump the side of Rostam's shoe. "Every time I look up, you're in the margins, man."

"That's not true," Rostam says. He pulls back from the page, though, where it's half idle lines Scott wrote to get going that morning and now half disjointed images as well. A lot of them look like people, not quite neat enough but unmistakable. "I try to do something, though. Even if I don't keep it."

"Are you good?" 

"I like doing it," Rostam says, smiling. He laughs, the kind of clipped sound that Scott gets from people when they're not sure if it's cool to just say yes. 

"Let me see," he says, leaning forward and spinning the paper around so that he can see everything. It all makes more sense right side up, and Scott taps his index over his favorite one, twisting his mouth and sucking on his teeth. "Dude, if you're good, just say you're good. Quit playing with me."

;;

"Mescudi," Kanye says. "Get off the fucking smartphone and pay attention to how I'm killing it."

"Nah, I'm listening," Scott says. "Look, look, I'm paying attention. You're going in on this track. I'm right here."

He just needs to send a message real quick. He rereads Rostam's message, takes in _almost all day and no scribbling. give me something?_ and debates for another moment before writing out three words: pattern, hubris, jabberwocky.

"Alright," Scott says, sliding his phone in his pocket. "All yours."

"Check this out," Kanye says.

It's not even like they're the only dudes in the suite, sitting around with the two engineers on the job. Kanye wants Scott's input, though, wants to know what he really thinks. Scott's in it, too, letting his brain wander only when he feels his phone buzz.

He doesn't get a chance to look at it until two hours later. When he does, he steps outside to find a soda, pulling up his texts and reading _one of those wasn't a real word..._

There's a picture attached anyway, a cameraphone shot of a four-legged creature with a diamond pattern across its back, hunched over with a crown at its feet.

Scott writes, _You still knew what i meant though. Insanity._

;;

"I should get you to make something for me all the time," Scott says when they have a break during the video shoot, enough time to snack on something. "Start up a whole line."

Rostam says, "I'm not really into t-shirts as a --"

"Fuck your t-shirts," Scott says, clapping his hand over his knee and dropping his head back. "I've got a bigger picture in mind. A book. One of those coffee table shits or, fuck it, just put the work right on coffee tables. A line of table tops. And shower curtains."

"Showers?" Rostam sounds skeptical.

Scott says, "Who doesn't need a shower curtain?" 

When Rostam laughs, it comes out stuttered, like skipping on an old tape. He says, "I have no comeback. Except -- except baths. What about those people? They don't need curtains."

"Don't be a smartass, man."

Rostam clears his throat and says, "Okay, then if there are staffs and music notes on the curtain, do you think people who read music will get the melodies stuck in their heads?" 

Sitting upright, Scott says, "Now that's what I'm saying. Give me stuff we can use."

;;

They're based in the same city and yet are hardly in the same place at the same time. It's sort of funny that the first message he gets from Bethany in two months comes right as he and Rostam are ordering dinner to go. He shares it, and then tucks the phone away, makes a mental note to come back to it when he and Rostam aren't doing other things.

"I've got to stop getting take-out and sit down for a nicer meal once in a while," Scott says, folding up his receipt and shoving it in his back pocket. 

"I always tell myself I'll cook more," Rostam says, shrugging.

Scott shakes his head. "No, no, I know better than to tell myself that lie. I've just been in this classy place."

"Want to be high-society for a while."

"It's all these Old Hollywood movies I've been watching."

"Like what?" Rostam asks, picking up condiment packets from the counter early. "I'd like to say I'm a secret Carole Lombard fan, but I tell everybody about it."

"It's Always Fair Weather was the last one I saw. Sometimes I want rage at not getting to meet Gene Kelly," Scott says. The motherfucker could tap dance in roller skates without breaking a sweat, and then still have enough energy to just straighten up and smile afterward. That's more gangster than anything the rowdiest dudes in Shaker Heights ever tried.

"Good point." Rostam bows his head in acknowledgement, and then he moves forward and grabs their containers of hot food as soon as they're set out. He checks the orders and scratches a different, unidentifiable mark into the styrofoam for each with his fingernail. "Back to mine?"

;;

He doesn't realize that greasy food made up their first date until Rostam basically hauls him to an upscale restaurant the next time they're in town together. They go to some French place, the kind of spot where Scott laughs a little every time he tries to pronounce anything on the menu, because he knows he's probably butchering most of the words. He might feel more uncomfortable about it if Rostam was doing much better, angling his amusement down toward the table while Scott throws all of his giggling left, covering it with his sleeve. 

They try to sober up when a waitress comes over, but by then all it takes is glancing at each other to set them off again. Scott asks what almost everything is, piecing the meanings of smaller dishes together from what he's learned just by living, and he's still not exactly sure what he's ordered until it comes to him. The food tastes good, and they get an expensive bottle of red wine to go with it, and after Scott says, "Now I can't decide if I feel _too_ much like an adult right now," and Rostam offers to pay.

"It's on me," he says, the corner of his mouth picking up left, wearing this sweet expression on his face as he looks at the check, flipping the pen around in his fingers.

"Hell no," Scott says, swiping it smoothly. Rostam almost looks stunned by it, and Scott huffs at him, this chuckle that falls out of a lopsided grin. He feels kind of smug. The bill is a few hundred dollars. "We're splitting this."

"It's my treat!" Rostam insists, tapping his fingers against the stem of his glass. 

"Are you trying to wine and dine me?" Scott asks, cutting his eyes across the top of small leather folder the check's tucked inside. 

Rostam doesn't trip over his answer. He scratches at his chin distractedly, says, "I mean, I picked the place. I set everything up."

"You sneaky bastard. Here I am, getting handled, and I almost miss it," Scott says, shaking his head. He looks at Rostam's left hand, sees him still playing with the pen, and there's no way Scott's not getting half of this bill, but he moves his napkin over towards Rostam's side and says. "Draw this. This place happening right now."

"Why?" 

"I want a souvenir," Scott says. Does it really fucking matter? "I'll let you cover the tip on this shit, too, if you want."

''Gee, thanks," Rostam says, sarcasm curled around the words as he spread out the napkin and starts to draw something in sections. He folds it over when the waitress comes to collect their credit cards, and he manages to tuck it away so easily once they leave that Scott almost forgets they planned to take it with them until he hands it over outside.

;;

Scott has this self-portrait, done on a sheet of yellow legal paper. It's crumpled at the corners and one edge is torn off clean, because when Rostam gave it to him, Scott had to pack up and fly back and forth across the country for the two and a half weeks following, and even the best intentions can't escape the hazards of travel. He wants to get it framed or laminated or something, help preserve the integrity of what's left, and his sister finds it in his bag when he asks her to go in there and locate his Nintendo DS for him, please.

"What's this?" she asks, voice picking up in a way that makes Scott think maybe she's found the eighth of weed he's got. He's ready to turn around and tell her to stop acting surprised about that, come on, but then she's just spreading the piece of paper on her thigh.

"Is this you?" she continues, looking up. 

Scott says, "Yeah," and he can't see it, but he knows it says 'For Cudder' across the side. 

Rostam doesn't even call him Cudder. Sometimes it's Cudi, and a lot of times it's just Scott, because that's how Scott still introduces himself to people, whether they take to it or not. He doesn't mind being called whatever else, it's all still him, but he notices the people who pay attention. 

"It's pretty good," his sister says, and Scott knows. It's supposed to be this distorted version of him inside a bunch of woods caving in. It's a fucked up dream Scott told Rostam about, because he'd had it three times in the same month, but it's more inviting on paper than it ever is in Scott's head.

He says, "It's part of a series," because Rostam told Scott to call him whenever he had nightmares, and he'd sketch them all until they could see what they might mean laid together. 

;;

Rostam may have tried to set up the dates, but Scott kisses him first. It happens while they're standing on a street corner, right after Rostam says that maybe if he only sketches fairytales, Scott will have decent dreams instead of nightmares. 

"You can't take that back," Rostam says as Scott steps back, eyelids feeling syrup-heavy, slow to rise and let harsh streetlight in again. 

But he almost laughs when he sees Rostam's face. They've been spending time for the last few months, and this dude still doesn't get that Scott doesn't do anything halfway, let alone by accident. When he tries to raises his arm a little, though, Rostam's fingers have found his wrist, thumb skidding against the edge of his long sleeve, so maybe he's just being careful.

"I got it," Scott says and pushes his cap back on his head some. He doesn't want the brim to get in the way when he leans in again.

;;

Scott thinks about how they look like they might be polar opposites, but it's never been the case. One of his older brothers is always getting into some trouble, but their family is really from suburbs not much different than how Rostam describes his parents' place. Rostam thinks of college as this institution for self-discovery, key to who he is, and Scott dropped out of his university before sophomore year because school just fucking took up too much of the day for someone knew what he wanted to do with himself. Rostam loves New York because it's vibrant, and Scott likes that it's a means to an end. Ohio wasn't ever gonna get him shit. 

Not that he doesn't love this city. Not that he doesn't love coming back to it -- even more lately. 

They still don't get to be in the same place very often at all, caught up in recording and promotion and tours. Rostam sends him a ton of frivolous doodles to bridge the gap, and Scott writes words to go with it, stuff that rhymes and some that doesn't, and he knows damn well that one of them just comes out sounding like a love letter one day, but he sends it anyway. 

Rostam calls him, laughing, and he says, "That was real 19th century, Mescudi." 

"Maybe I'm on my Lord Byron bullshit today, you don't know," Scott says, stretching out his free arm. "I'll be home next week. I'm gearing up."

"We overlap in Florida," Rostam says. 

"Nah, everywhere is Brooklyn, baby. We take it with," Scott says, not elaborating, but Rostam laughs again, so he gets it.


End file.
